You’ve owned your home for 20 years and are finally making your last mortgage payment! The house is truly yours now. You’ve worked hard to get it paid off, and have even saved up enough money to get the kitchen remodeled. You hire contractors and the work begins.
The Project Begins
You are about half way through the project when an electrical fire starts. Luckily enough, it was caught before burning down the entire house, but there is still a lot of damage. You call your insurance agent to get the claim started.
The adjuster comes out to the house, the claim goes smoothly, and you receive a check in the mail to get the repairs done. You open up the envelope, and the check is made out to the bank you had the mortgage through. What the heck? You paid that off a few months ago.
Time To Call Your Insurance Agent
Upset, you call your insurance agent to complain. Your agent is also surprised, because there are no notes, comments or phone calls from you notifying them the mortgage was paid off. Well of course you didn’t call! Those things just update automatically right? Wouldn’t the mortgage company notify my insurance agent?
Your Insurance Agent Tells You Otherwise
As your insurance agent explains, nobody notifies the insurance agent except the policy holder, and that would be you! Thankfully all is not lost, but now you have quite a few hoops to jump through in order to have the check paid to the correct person, and to get the bank out of the picture. If it’s a local bank, it will certainly be a lot easier than if you have to deal with a company out of town.
The moral to this story is to make sure you notify your insurance agent of any changes, especially to the status of your mortgage. The same goes for lien holders for your vehicles. These companies are quick to holler if they are not listed on your home or vehicle when they carry the loan, but once that loan is over, they will never contact your insurance agent.
Don’t get caught in a mess like this. When you make major changes, like paying off a loan, your insurance agent needs to know!
To learn more about what you do, or don’t have covered, give the Corwin-Rey team a call today at (360) 414-8754.